Getty Images Review

Getty Images is arguably the most prestigious and well-known stock photography agency in the world. Its strong global presence, huge pool of images including exclusive collections, and impeccable reputation make for a first-class, premium stock photo service like no other. Working with Rights Managed and Royalty Free images, both for commercial and editorial only use, Getty Images has the perfect photos for your every need.

You can buy this premium photos on demand. Rights Managed images' price vary according to intended use, ranging from a couple hundred to up to thousands of dollars. Royalty Free photos on the other hand, cost from $125 to $500. But you can get them for as low as $100 to $375 each using an Ultrapack. If you're after top class stock photography, Getty Images is definitely one agency to explore.

And you can explore it right now, using the search feature below. Enter your keywords, hit the button, and be blown away by the results!

Update: Getty Images soon to be directed by the Getty family - 2019.01.01

It was recently announced that Getty Images co-founder Mark Getty and his family are acquiring a majority stake in the company. The purchase should be completed before the end of the year, and it will mean the Getty family will be now directing the agency. As part of this change, there will be a new CEO and a new non-executive director, CFO will be ratified, and Mark Getty will join the company's board. Read all the details in our news article on the Getty Family to take Full Control of Getty Images!

Getty Images is one of the most prestigious and well-known stock photography agencies in the world. Since its foundation over 20 years ago, this company has become and consistently hold their ground as one of the leaders in stock photo industry.

They've built a huge catalog of high quality stock imagery and they've diversified and expanded their offer. They own iStock (previously iStockphoto), one of the top microstock agencies in the market.

Getty Images: Not your Average Stock Photo Agency

During the last 20 years, Getty Images has grown to, and sustained, a leading position in the stock photography industry, by transforming the way the industry worked.

They entered the market with the premise of putting all these worldwide-sourced stock imagery in one place, allowing customers from all over the world to access the widest variety of content in one stop.

To achieve this they bought and merged many small stock agencies and also partnered with other big content providers and distributors from all around the globe, which they still do today.

They also have photos of photographers who contribute to them directly. These contributor images are exclusive to Getty Images for as long as the photographer has a contract with them. This means a lot of the content you can buy at Getty Images, can't be found anywhere else.

Following Market Trends

As the media formats and types evolve, so do the need of buyers to get them, and so did Getty in providing it. Right now Getty Images offers photos, vectors, illustrations, footage and audio.

Find all Getty Images Content on their Online, Searchable Collection

The library is arranged by collections, categories and lightboxes for most relevant content. And it's all neatly organized and highly searchable.

At their site, you can go straight to the lightboxes and slideshows that interest you, click on the main labels that direct you to their Creative, Editorial, Video and Music sections, explore collections and categories, or use their search tool to find exactly the photos you're looking for.

Their search bar lets you filter by purpose (Creative or Editorial), license type (RM or RF, for creative photos) and media type (Images or Videos) from the very start. And you can enter the most relevant keywords for your search in the blank field. Once the engine displays all results matching your keywords, you have an unfoldable label with lots of advanced filtering options. You can sort results for best match, newest or most popular, and filter by image type and orientation. Further, you can filter by locations, number, age and composition of people depicted, image style, ethnicity, and photographer. And you can also turn a nudity filter on and off (it's on by default).

Buy Licenses to Use the Photos you Want

Getty Images sells different licenses to use the photos in their collections. They work mainly with Rights Managed (where the price of the photo depends on the use you want to make of it) and also with Royalty Free, which means you pay a one-time fee to use the photo in a varied number of ways.

They have both Commercial (what they call Creative) and Editorial variants. Commercial use is not hard to figure out: it means any use with commercial or for-profit intention. For this license type they have both Rights Managed and Royalty Free licenses.

Credit: Getty Images/ Mark Thompson 535250134

Editorial use means that the photos can only be used to accompany, illustrate or enhance text in publications. Be it print or digital, editorial images can be used as part of articles, blog posts, text books, ebooks, etc. But only to illustrate the content. For this kind of use, they have Rights Managed licenses.

Editorial photos cannot be used in publication covers, nor as part of the graphic design of them. They cannot be used in any commercial or for-profit way.

Choose the Most Convenient Payment Option

Getty Images lets you pay for your stock photos in different ways depending on if you have (or create) an account with them, or you don't.

If you have an account with them, you can choose to pay with a credit card, or to be billed to your account. The Getty Images account is a sort of “credit line”, where they add all the correspondent charges and further invoice you or debit the totals from your credit card.

But an account is not a requirement to buy at Getty Images. You can do it without registering an account, but in this case your only option is to pay via credit card.

Either way, it's a simple system that lets you buy and pay for photos just like you would when purchasing any other items.

Save up to 30% in On Demand Stock Photos with Getty Images Ultrapacks

The process to purchase photos on demand can take a while at this agency, because of the need to inform the intended use and calculating the price based on it. And prices can fluctuate a lot depending on what kind of use you want to make of photos, getting to thousands of dollars in certain specific cases.

Getty Images Ultrapacks are created to overcome those issues, that could put some potential buyers off. With Ultrapacks, you buy a certain number of images upfront, for a flat, one-time fee. And then you can use those download rights to get the photos you want, whenever you want.

The best? Ultrapacks apply a discount to the regular price per image. The larger the pack is, the greater price cut you receive, getting as high as 30% off. Ultrapacks let you save hundreds of dollars in your stock photo purchases, and eliminate the hassle of having to go through the a la carte process to license images!

Ultrapacks give you access to a collection of over 50 million Creative Royalty Free photos and videos, and to most of Getty Editorial images with a RM Editorial license valid for 15 years. Plus, all media bought with Ultrapacks comes with a custom license that gives you extended rights at no extra cost!

Over the past 20 years their acquisitions, partnerships and distribution agreements with different international companies, added to their network of photographers from all over the world, has helped them build a strong collection with millions of images representing the most varied topics, subjects and styles. They have content in different resolutions to ensure the best quality in customers' final productions.

The same supply network has made them lead the market of stock imagery on current newsworthy events and other relevant content for print or online publishing, or other news reporting uses.

Their numerous partners with access to exclusive venues and events, plus their wide base of photographers shooting exclusively for them, cover all the popular events in entertainment (TV, Film, Music, etc), sports, and other relevant events with celebrities that are of public interest.

Credit: Getty Images / Handout 476996143

At Getty Images you can find large collections covering anything from the annual Academy Awards in Hollywood to a Fashion Week in a world's fashion capital or the last Olympics. To know more about Getty Images Celebrity collections, read here!

And this is not all. This international coverage also allows Getty Images to collect great imagery from almost any newsworthy current event in the world, providing visuals to illustrate any news report or related texts. And through their partnerships with local agencies they are also able to deliver regionally relevant content from all around the globe.

Publishers of all kinds are certain to find the visual content they need at Getty Images.

Getty Images Historic Stock Photo Archives

Since its early days Getty Images has been actively acquiring historic photo archives, some of them extremelly high-valued, like the Retrofile collection of images from over a century ago, or the Michael Ochs archives of musicians photos.

Last year their historic collection was enlarged with the addition of several photo archives from competitor agency Corbis. Corbis was acquired by an Asian stock photography company, Visual China Group, who is partners with Getty Images for cross distribution, and has given Getty the exclusive rights to distribute Corbis archives.

Getty Images Looks Forward

Getty continues adding partnerships and developments to stay at top of the industry, as they always have. Lately, their efforts are focused in keeping up with the new technologic development in visual arts, and delivering high quality content from the most relevant events.

To achieve this goal, they've formed a new Innovation Group within the agency, and its members are committed solely to work on the most edgy technologies and trends in photography industry.

Plus, Getty Images has been appointed as the exclusive and official photographic agency for the Rio 2016 Olympics. They will be the go-to agency to find the best photos from the games, but they're taking it one step further.

As part of their innovation goals, Getty Images is diving deep in the new Virtual Reality visual trend, and has decided to make their coverage of the Olympics a full VR experience. They have created a new VR Group within the company, and all their professional photographers covering the games will be equipped with 360° cameras.

Plus, they've also just announced a new partnership with Slidely, a social video platform for customers to create their own promotional videos.

Getty's take on stock imagery and business is also shared in their blogs: InFocus, where they share details on their coverage and latest developments, and Stories and Trends, where their experts analyse current trends and styles, and offer great insights on the best ways to use stock photos. And on their website you will always find curations for the best photos, the most popular, and editor's choices.